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Он не вернулся из боя

Vladimir Semënovič Vysotskij / Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий
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Versione inglese di Peter Struwwel
K.I.AABOUT A DEAD FRIEND
  
Why is everything wrong? Looks like nothing has changed:Why is everything wrong? - Everything just is like always:
Vault of heaven, again, the same azure,The same sky, once again it’s blue,
The same wood, the same air, the same water, again,The same forest, the same air, and the very same water,
Only he isn’t back – killed in action.Only he didn’t return from the battle.
  
Now it’s late to decide whose account was more soundNow I can’t understand, which one of us was right
In our wrangles void of bedtime and leisure.In those sleepless, restless arguments of ours.
I have only begun to feel need of him nowI’m only now getting enough rest,
That he hasn’t returned, killed in action.Since he didn’t return from the battle.
  
He sang songs out of tune, he kept mute out of place,He shut up at the wrong times and often sang the wrong lines,
Speaking far from the point was his fashion,He was always talking about something different,
He was up with the birds, he disrupted my rest,He didn’t let me sleep, he got up with the dawn,
And, the other day, was killed in action.But yesterday he didn’t return from the battle.
  
It is needless to say I’m like empty within –What’s so empty now - I’m not talking about that,
We’re a duo, it suddenly flashes.All at once I noticed that we were a pair!
It’s for me like a fire blown out by the wind,For me it was if the wind blew out the fire,
Now that he isn’t back, killed in action.When he didn’t return from the battle.
  
Free, as if out of jail, Spring is raging around.Now spring has run off, as if from captivity
I turn round to him by distraction:By mistake I yelled at him:
‘Brother, give me a smoke,’ – in response not a sound,Friend, put out the cigarette! - But in answer - silence
He, the other day, was killed in action.Yesterday he didn’t return from the battle.
  
In a mess, killed in action will never desert us,Our dead don’t leave us when we are in trouble,
Our fallen will always stand ground.Our fallen are like sentries.
Wild blue yonder is mirrored in wood, like in water,The sky is reflected in the forest, as if in water,
And cerulean trees stand around.And the trees now stand in blue.
  
In a blindage, there’s been room enough for the two,There was plenty of room in the foxhole,
For the two, time’s been evenly measured.Time there slowly passed for both of us.
All is left but to one. Only there is a moodEverything now is just for one man... Though it seems to me,
It is me who’s not back, killed in action.That it was I who didn’t return from the battle.


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